Who are you or how would you describe your life’s work/play?

From this perspective, ⅔ or ¾ or whatever thru this life, I’m feeling like a wanderer. A lucky and privileged wanderer. I marvel at memories and notice better now the affordances I experienced but hardly appreciated, or perhaps still don’t.

I love learning – but that doesn’t feel descriptive enough, so I turn to circularities. Perhaps a life’s work/play is in learning about a life’s work/play?

I’ve devoted a lot of time to thinking about shape-and-be-shaped processes: interplays between how we shape the world and how the world shapes us in turn. The so-called Riddle of the Sphinx.

Recently, I’ve been struck by Charles Taylor’s framing. He said that a cultural shift will have happened when people can no longer comprehend what’s meant by the phrase “mind-body problem.” That feels, in part, a way of describing what I’ve been working on as well. So I’ve been wondering about that as an aspiration.

Thrivability. How are you relating to the world through a thrivable society lens? What story do you have about thrivability and why are you being named a thrivable society fellow?

For me, thrivability is about relationships. No one thrives alone, do they? Caring, orienting, coordinating, designing, nurturing, mourning, hospicing. These are the types of gestures I think about when I think about thrivability. I’ve been reading Carol Gilligan: “The ideal of care is thus an activity of relationship … sustaining the web of connection so that no one is left alone.”

I think thrivability requires a focus on the living, on social purpose. At the same time, I’ve experienced how life’s challenges can narrow one’s gaze. Especially in trying times, it’s easy to focus on one’s family, but I try to stay with the trouble, the broader purpose. “For it is important that awake people be awake.” (William Stafford)

I tend to associate thrivability with Jean, and my recollections – seeds of a story – turn to the first time we met at the Portland Recent Changes Camp – so much younger and bursting with enthusiasm. That’s the scene I recall, with Wade, Peter+Trudy, Jher, Kaliya, and many others.

Aliveness. What is fostering aliveness in you?

You know, the usual stuff. Sun on my face, wind in my hair, friends and laughter. Plus, I’m crazy for music – from Alice Coltrane to Terry Riley to Jaimie branch to Dilla time.

There’s also the aliveness in anticipation. There’s something about the way a future-focus affirms the life of today. Perhaps paradoxically, I also wonder about ways in which a future-focus might undermine the work/play of today.

What question could I ask that would be the most interesting to answer right now?

Is our relationship with *time* part of “the problem”? Not only the cultural values of efficiency, urgency, and impact but also underlying ideas of progress. The discourse of foresight and futures could use a big dose of critical thinking as well.

Imagine we are [very different forms of memory-making organisms], what would you be/do/have?

What was the question again?